Had a scary experience today getting caught in a severe thunderstorm with lots of lightening and high water covering many roads, driving my son's car for the first time ever. Had to pull off to the side of the road twice because it was raining so hard I couldn't see with the windshield wipers on full blast. Took me over an hour to get home for a 15 minute drive. I felt so bad that I couldn't call him because I forgot to charge my cell phone and ran out of power on the way home. Had to turn around twice and find an alternate route when I got to high water. When I was safely home I thought of how lucky I was to have merely that experience when so many people lose their loved ones and homes in tornados, hurricanes, and floods.

Did well Sunday at the cookout but totally sucked yesterday as I was on an uncontrolled high carb binge. Back on track. Haven't logged in my nutrition tracker today yet, but I am sure today's numbers will be fine.

Wow Mern! That sounds scary. Glad you kept your wits about you and made it home safe. I bet your son was worried.

Thank you Main80! Every encouragement helps.

Today is off to a great start with an awesome workout! I may not have a great end to my week though. Last night my Dad called to tell me that my step-mom of about 20 yrs passed away. She was paralyzed and bed-ridden for the past 7-8 yrs and she and I had an on/off relationship. Since December of this past year she has been either in a hospital or a nursing home. They said she could not be at home any more due to her health condition needing constant monitoring. In January her heart was so weak that only 1 of every 4 beats was a good one and they gave her 7-10 days to survive. She came back and made it until June 21st. She finally succumbed to multiple UTI's. She has been on antibiotics for almost the past two years for them and the antibiotics no longer worked. she was delusional from the infection but was not awake since late Sunday. She passed in her sleep. So later this week we will need to make a trip to Ohio to help my dad with her viewing. I don't want him to be alone for it. He has devoted every waking minute to her for the past 7-8 yrs. Caring for her at home himself with only a day nurse so he could go to work. Even going to the hospital/home multiple times daily to make sure that the nurses were doing what needed done. He is going to be so lost for a while without having her to take care of and learning to take care of himself. I just hate that he is six hours away. I am going to work on getting him to move back home. Anyway...I'm about to cry and I'm at work where customers can come to my window at any time and I don't want that....

Health -
- work out all days that hubby works he's off Mon & Tues
- walk during lunch break at work every day I take a lunch (might not get to on Friday) yes, 1.5mile(30min) | yes, 1.75mile(40min)
- no junk food yes! | no, small dish of ice cream
- drink 80oz water daily (or more) yes, 96oz | no, 72oz

Life -
- don't sweat the small stuff yes | yes
- try to get in the pond at least twice this week no | no
- keep paperwork at work caught up no | yes!

Mike, good to see your goals are back to "normal" ones, instead of the confusing ones

lol it was starting to confuse me as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mern

Don't know where my post went. I was sure it had gone through. LOL

Had a scary experience today getting caught in a severe thunderstorm with lots of lightening and high water covering many roads, driving my son's car for the first time ever. Had to pull off to the side of the road twice because it was raining so hard I couldn't see with the windshield wipers on full blast. Took me over an hour to get home for a 15 minute drive. I felt so bad that I couldn't call him because I forgot to charge my cell phone and ran out of power on the way home. Had to turn around twice and find an alternate route when I got to high water. When I was safely home I thought of how lucky I was to have merely that experience when so many people lose their loved ones and homes in tornados, hurricanes, and floods.

Did well Sunday at the cookout but totally sucked yesterday as I was on an uncontrolled high carb binge. Back on track. Haven't logged in my nutrition tracker today yet, but I am sure today's numbers will be fine.

Welcome to our new members and former regular posters returning!

Sounds like you had quite a scare, I'm glad it turn out alright. I know what you mean about those carb binges. I'm sure it wasn't that bad, when I binge I can hit 500 grams, that should make you feel better, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by canary52

Mike, I too am glad I can understand your posts again.

Me too.

I talked to my Chiropractor today and he's about to send me out for an epidural. I can't believe it but I'm actually looking forward to it. Yesterday I was sitting on the floor playing the playstation and when I got up I actually wasn't in pain... and I was shcoked. I noticed that it had been about 30 minutes since I was in pain and that was a pretty big deal. I can't wait until I'm pain free. I felt like being grateful for being pain free for 1/2hr is like being grateful for paying $3.30/gal for gas... I shouldn't be satisfied, or should I? I have a new appreciation for people that live in pain on a daily basis. This has opened my eyes to what others deal with on a regular basis. I must admit, I'd take muscle soreness over nerve pain any day. Somebody at work was asking what it felt like, the best way for me to describe it was to imagine the nerve pain of a tooth ache, then put that pain in your ass and leg.

It was a huge relief getting back into the gym on Monday. Even though it was only a week away from the gym I felt like I was starting to lose a small part of me. I spent a lot of time sitting in my chair at work (worked many days until 6:30-7:00pm), being stretched with traction and sitting in front of the TV. I took the dogs for a car ride when ever i could since I couldn't walk them. I spent very little time outside and if I wanted decent sleep I had to lay on an ice pack, take a melatonin or a pain pill or a combination of that. I think I took hydrocodone for 3 nights and I decided to stop that. I'd rather not sleep well then to be one of those people that start off clean then get hooked on pain meds. I started to get irritable, and even a little depressed.

Like I said it opened my eyes. I thought about how hard it is for people that are confined to their homes, trapped in their own four walls. There's a member that joined here a while back that lives that lifestyle. I couldn't imagine doing that day in and day out, month in and month out, for years.

Being limited as to what I could do for a short period of time made me think of a guy that I know. He had a great life, great marriage, great family, great job, was very active, people looked up to him and depended on him. He was the backbone for his family and employees. A couple years ago he had a birthday party for his daughter and rented one of those big inflatable slides. He went down head first and broke his neck. He didn't lose his life that day... but he sort of did. He's not the same man he once was. He lives in constant pain, can barely do ANYTHING. His wife was having to take care of him just as she does for her little kids. It destroyed who he once was. He a grown man that recently moved back in with his parents, hours away from his family, b/c he could no longer take feeling like a burden on his wife.

Boy, I sound like a downer today haha. Maybe I should be grateful for my 1/2 hour of freedom...

April, my condolences to you and your dad on the loss of your stepmom. Sounds like your Dad loved her very much. Best wishes for your Dad's life on his own. Congrats on your exercise and control of the junk food.

Hope and April, and Mike, thanks for your empathy. I do pretty well in a tense situation by continually telling myself I don't have time to think of anything but remaining in control. I get nervous when it's all over thinking about what could have happened, though. My son said he wasn't worried because he didn't know I was caught in the storm--he thought I was still indoors. Glad he didn't know.

Hope, You're off to a very good start this week. Keep up the good work! Congrats on the stretching, too!

Mike, best wishes on your goals this week. Congrats on paying off Uncle Sam! I'm guessing my Monday carb binge was 200-250, but that's horrible for someone trying to control her blood sugar without meds. So is the epidural just to give you a break from the pain for a while? How long will that last? Your pain sounds absolutely horrible by your description of it compared with a tooth ache. I understand what you mean--my upper arm and shoulder felt like that a few years ago when I had a really bad case of tendonitis and bursitis. I cried with the pain. My heart goes out to you for both the pain and the sleepless nights. But I commend you on your forethought to avoid getting dependent on prescription pain meds. Is it possible to alternate prescription and over-the-counter meds to prevent getting dependent or addicted? I have no idea--just throwing that out to see if it's a possible solution. Yep, seems like whenever we think our lives are the pits we can always look around and find someone worse off, like the guy who had the inflatable slide accident. Big gentle cyberhug to ya!

Tuesday report: I did really well on everything except exercise. Promising myself to get in at least a mile of aerobic walking today.

I mainly take Aleve but you are not supposed to take it more than 10 days straight, so at that point I get off of it for 2 day. Yesterday I tried Advil Liqui-gels, that seemed to help but I was taking 4 at a time.

I thought the epidular would just cover the pain but I talked to 2 people and both said they had the same issue (1 had it much worse... 3 bulging discs) & they both got 3 injections a month a part and haven't had an issue since. The guy with the 3 bulging discs said that it's been a year and a half and no issue and no more injections. He said that he delt with the pain for over a year before finally getting the epidural. He said immediately after the 1st injection he had absolutely zero pain, felt like he could run a marathon and never felt pain between injections or to this date. That's right up my alley since i have my race scheduled in September. I was thinking that I could "suck it up" and deal with it for a long time like most people, but why?